March 28, 2012 04:26 PM CDTApril 19, 2012 03:47 PM CDTRestaurant review: Campo Modern Country Bistro has its charms, but needs a little work

Restaurant review: Campo Modern Country Bistro has its charms, but needs a little work

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Allison Slomowitz/Special Contributor

When Campo Modern Country Bistro opened last November with Matt McCallister in charge of the kitchen, the little Oak Cliff bungalow was turning out some of the most compelling plates in town. With a Josh Black as head chef now, McCallister’s brilliant milk-poached pork has morphed into “milk braised pork tibia” with ham hock milk pudding, fava purée and rhubarb.

When Campo Modern Country Bistro opened last November with Matt McCallister in charge of the kitchen, the little Oak Cliff bungalow was turning out some of the most compelling plates in town — sophisticated rabbit en porchetta three ways, crisp-skinned brick chicken with a sultry smoked jus, perfect house-made pastas. Best of all was McCallister’s incredibly tender milk-poached pork with braised prunes, blood pudding and a rich and pure-tasting “milk pudding” sauce. The cooking was ambitious, original and dynamic, with McCallister changing up the menu every few days.

It was never the plan for McCallister to stay on as executive chef: Owners Miguel Vicéns and John Paul Valverde were clear from the start that McCallister’s sous-chef, Josh Black, would become head chef when McCallister inevitably decamped, which is what happened last month.

Since then, unfortunately, much of the culinary magic vanished along with McCallister.

Still, there’s lots to love at Campo. Vicéns and Valverde, who also own design firm Coéval Studio, have created a setting with great appeal. The small dining room is at once rustic and stylish, done in off-whites and ecru with splashes of red here and there (basketlike lighting fixtures over the bar, a solid red square of a painting). A striking art piece over the window onto the kitchen is speared with real forks, knives and spoons.

It’s a feel-good place, fun and relaxed, with good cocktails, particularly the frothy, lightly fruity Campo Pisco. A small loaf of terrific duck-fat-brushed house-made bread lands on every table.

Depending on who appears, the service can be extremely engaged, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and professional, or it can be warm, friendly and challenged. If something the menu calls “black barely soil” appears on a plate and it looks indeed like dirt, then diners deserve a description of the dish when it lands. If a vegetarian guest asks for an entree-size portion of a pasta, then he shouldn’t have to make do with a tiny “small secondi” portion.

The compact menu still features a number of the original dishes. But the roasted cauliflower gratin dip now soothes rather than wows; chorizo fritters, hot, crisp and fabulous on first meeting, arrived a little squishy and just warmish. (Love that charred oregano aioli, though.) A new appetizer, shrimp fondue, sounds intriguing, but the Mornay sauce-bathed gratin of prawns and potatoes is awfully close to the cauliflower dip in tone and texture.

Chef Black gets more creative with a couple of the starters — smart disks fashioned from veal short rib, nicely crisped in pan and garnished with grilled celery, baby artichoke and bits of blood orange. A blood-orange vinaigrette had the right flavor to pull it all together, but the minimalist drizzle wasn’t enough to do the job; the dish just missed being wonderful.

I felt the same way about the dish with the “soil” — a beet salad that tried a little too hard. Smudges of smoked goat cheese worked beautifully with thinly sliced beets, but there was so little of it that the salad’s minimalism came off as parsimonious. That soil, which tasted like chocolate cookie crumbs, was just silly.

Another starter, pork belly with mustard risotto, had flavors that reminded me of a hot dog slathered with French’s, and not in a good way.

Main courses lacked the verve and deft hand of McCallister’s cooking, but on the bright side, they fall more easily into the “simple seasonal rustic country cooking” idiom announced at the top of the menu. They were mostly fine, if often oversalted.

My favorite, lamb breast served with an English pea purée, had beguiling lamby flavor. Equally flavorful “Piedmont cow” (a beef tenderloin special) was cooked to a lovely medium-rare and served with buttered peas — delicious on their own, but odd with the plate’s dabs of pistou. Brick chicken wanted a crisper skin.

McCallister’s brilliant milk-poached pork has morphed into “milk braised pork tibia” with ham hock milk pudding, fava purée and rhubarb. The enthusiastic waiter pointed out something he said was the milk pudding. Where? There? That just looked and tasted like an ordinary jus. The pork was tender, though; it’s a good if unexciting dish.

Here’s the thing: When McCallister sent out his versions of some of these plates, each element was so vivid, pure and delicious, and all in perfect balance, that the smallish portion sizes felt right, and the dishes — which topped out at about $22 — seemed quite reasonably priced. The prices haven’t gone up, but because the cooking isn’t as sharp, the plates aren’t nearly as satisfying and now they seem expensive. Particularly the morcilla-stuffed quail, a single small bird weirdly accented with dabs of lemon curd sweet enough for dessert.

Meanwhile, Black needs a little more practice (or good counsel) concerning pasta. House-made tagliardi, ravioli, agnolotti and pappardelle were all tough and clunky, as was the ravioli’s rabbit filling. My vegetarian friend’s tiny $13 “garden” beet pappardelle, bathed in a very salty spring onion velouté, featured pieces of carrot the size, shape and nearly the hardness of small marbles. Fortunately, we’d ordered an extra pasta for the table. Unfortunately, the wonderful-sounding English pea agnolotti with speck and preserved citrus had the texture of cardboard. Speck is usually sliced paper-thin, but here, cut into unpleasantly chewy batons and piled atop the pasta.

Campo’s wine list also could use rethinking. It’s extremely challenging to find something affordable and interesting among its 30 mostly New World selections, with a few familiar, unexciting European bottles thrown in. Campo has so much character, it would be nice if the wines did, too.

Desserts were more demure than rustic — a cube of lemon poundcake with smoked huckleberry sauce and buttermilk ice cream. Or a cylinder of white chocolate cake in milk chocolate sauce strewn with dark chocolate “dirt.” Best was a pecan and pear tart with parsnip caramel and a drizzle of brown butter.

While the cooking and service can disappoint, Campo has a lot of potential. Chef Black understands flavor and has good instincts; perhaps he just needs to step back, taste the things he’s cooking and ask himself whether they’re as delicious as they could be. A tweak here, a little more sauce there, a focus on tasty rusticity with a wee bit less salt and pretension, and his cooking could very well take off.

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